This badass pic comes to TOE from the spring of 1894. Over the course of their lives, Tesla and Twain grew to be close friends, a documented fact that I was unaware of.

Another tidbit I didn’t know: Tesla died a pauper despite his inventions; apparently the world of money money money didn’t interest him as much as electromagnetism and bringing about the Second Industrial Revolution.

I can’t say for certain, but perhaps this badass pic planted the seed for the steampunk graphic novel, The Five Fists of Science, in which

Nikola Tesla, Mark Twain and Bertha von Suttner combine forces to try to bring about world peace through superior firepower.